Systems have been proposed for recording individual fields and frames of conventional video signals (having NTSC or PAL format). Recently, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers has adopted a standard, known as the SMPTE 240M standard, for high definition video signals. Throughout this Specification, including in the claims, the phrase "high definition video" signal (or "HDTV" signal) will be used to denote 1125-line, 60 Hz video signals (having an aspect ratio of 16 to 9) which meet the SMPTE 240M standard, or which meet the SMPTE 240M requirements for field rate, aspect ratio, blanking interval duration, and number of horizontal lines per field, but which differ from the SMPTE 240M standard in other respects.
It would be desirable to record one or more individual fields and frames of a color HDTV signal (either analog or digital), for post production, editing, off-speed transfer of the signal, and other purposes. However, until the present invention, it had not been known how to record individual fields or frames of a color HDTV signal for partial or full frame or field transfers to a host computer (or other processing or display unit) at arbitrary speed (i.e., less than or equal to the standard video rate) using a system which emulates a conventional video tape recorder ("VTR") with very fast response and is compatible with conventional digital computer systems and image processing systems.